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Emma Campbell of Array Collective on winning the Turner Prize

Jane Hardy talks to Emma Campbell of Array Collective about the Belfast-based group's Turner Prize win

Array Collective. Pictured left to right: Grace McMurray, Laura O'Connor, Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell, Sinead Bhreathnach-Cashell, Mitch Conlon, Alessia Cargnelli, Jane Butler, Clodagh Lavelle, Stephen Millar, Thomas Wells and Emma Campbell. Picture by Matt Alexander/PA Wire
Array Collective. Pictured left to right: Grace McMurray, Laura O'Connor, Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell, Sinead Bhreathnach-Cashell, Mitch Conlon, Alessia Cargnelli, Jane Butler, Clodagh Lavelle, Stephen Millar, Thomas Wells and Emma Campbell. Picture by Array Collective. Pictured left to right: Grace McMurray, Laura O'Connor, Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell, Sinead Bhreathnach-Cashell, Mitch Conlon, Alessia Cargnelli, Jane Butler, Clodagh Lavelle, Stephen Millar, Thomas Wells and Emma Campbell. Picture by Matt Alexander/PA Wire

THE artist's - and art collective's - life is not an easy one. Since winning the 2021 Turner Prize last week and receiving praise for their work on Northern Irish identity, the 11 members of Array Collective now discover they may lose their studios in King Street, Belfast, where they conceived of their winning entry, The Druithaib's Ball.

Emma Campbell, one eleventh of the collective, said they hadn't had time to work out a plan, having learnt that the building had been sold and they might have only 18 months left.

"We weren't expecting the nomination, and we weren't expecting to win," says a modest Campbell (42) of the "lovely surprise" of their subversive síbín claiming the £25,000 prize.

You have to wonder how a collective works artistically. It turns out to be a very democratic process, according to Campbell, though it's not always easy: "We have quite a number of meetings and workshops. We all present different ideas, put them on the wall and have a vote."

Array Collective members began bonding in Belfast in around 2016 over protests centring on social issues including gay marriage and abortion rights.

That subject matter, involving group and societal concerns which are of course also individually felt, continued in their prizewinning installation with the pub.

At its perimeter are references to ancient Irish sites, as Campbell noted: "We referred to Newgrange as we wanted the ancient Irish mythology and cultural rites, almost the function of the síbín. We wanted it to feel ceremonial."

Above they displayed banners on reproduction rights and conversion therapy. And sitting in the corner of this traditional looking bar - described by one reviewer as midway between the past and the future - they placed some stuffed figures; not Ian Paisley, as was thought, but "a unionist figure, covered with wood pellets because of the RHI scandal, a Sinn Féin figure with details of the Northern Bank robbery, also a pixel figure, referring to the role of the media in stoking up sectarianism".

Array Collective's Turner Prize-winning exhibition. They are the first Northern Ireland winners of the prestigious award. Picture by Doug Peters/PA Wire
Array Collective's Turner Prize-winning exhibition. They are the first Northern Ireland winners of the prestigious award. Picture by Doug Peters/PA Wire Array Collective's Turner Prize-winning exhibition. They are the first Northern Ireland winners of the prestigious award. Picture by Doug Peters/PA Wire

There has often been controversy attached to the Turner; it's almost part of the brand and goes right back to Tracey Emin's bed. This time it was the artistic process itself.

The notion of the exclusively collective Turner Prize shortlist didn't go down well in all quarters with The Sunday Times art critic talking about "social engineering".

Such comments are "absurd", argues Campbell: "For so long it's been mostly male categorisation and that idea of writing from the idea of hanging a picture on a wall. No-one can make artistic practice individually.

"Just as you can't make a meal without depending on delivery people or the people who make the packaging. It's more explicit with our interdependence.

"There is something deluded about the idea of a genius artist. Nobody was able to exist financially without support or if it was a male artist, without a woman looking after them and their children.

"Another serious reason to be in a collective is if you're from a working class background. We all have other jobs and work in the communities sector and have other responsibilities." Including family - the group photographs includes two babies and Emma's four-year-old, Luca.

Array Collective intend to bring the síbín and film back home, so people can form their own response.

"We'll be bringing it back to the island after the exhibition finishes at the Herbert Gallery, Coventry at the end of January. Galway first, but 100 per cent we want the work to stay in Ireland, where it will be read differently."